On metaphysical guilt

Steve Bantu Biko, in I write what I like, describes it as being

There exists among men, because they are men, a solidarity through which each shares
responsibility for every injustice and every wrong committed in the world, and especially for crimes that are committed in his presence or of which he cannot be ignorant

Biko

He then goes ahead to write

This description of “metaphysical guilt” explains adequately that white racism “is only
possible because whites are indifferent to suffering and patient with cruelty” meted out to the
black man. Instead of involving themselves in an all-out attempt to stamp out racism from
their white society, liberals waste lots of time trying to prove to as many blacks as they can
find that they are liberal. This arises out of the false belief that we are faced with a black
problem. There is nothing the matter with blacks. The problem is WHITE RACISM and it
rests squarely on the laps of the white society. The sooner the liberals realise this the better
for us blacks. Their presence amongst us is irksome and of nuisance value. It removes the
focus of attention from essentials and shifts it to ill-defined philosophical concepts that are
both irrelevant to the black man and merely a red herring across the track. White liberals
must leave blacks to take care of their own business while they concern themselves with the
real evil in our society—white racism.

Steve Biko

which, from what I read of some societies where racism is still a problem, almost rings true. But I could be wrong given that the problem of race did not have a long gestation period here, not that it didn’t exist at all. No it did. We have white neighbourhoods and African estates. There were miscegenation laws among other racist policies here too.